The Price of Pride
by Caz251
Summary: Summary: The price Toshiko must pay for her pride. Spoilers for S2 Wp 12 Fragments. Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood.


**Title:** The Price of Pride  
**Characters:** Toshiko with mentions of Jack, her mother, the terrorists and UNIT  
**Word Count:** 901

******Rating:** Pg  
**Spoilers:** Spoilers for S2 episode Fragments  
**Disclaimer:** Torchwood doesn't belong to me but the BBC, I'm just borrowing.  
**Author's notes: **Written for the **tw_lucky_7** challenge involving the first prompt _pride_ and the character _Toshiko_.

Toshiko Sato was never someone to worry much about pride, she knew her family were proud of her as a person, and that was all that really mattered. She had never seen herself as a person that had much to be proud about, yes at school she was a top student and she excelled at mathematics and the sciences, but so did other children all over the world. As she grew so did her abilities in the areas of maths, science and technology, but it wasn't something that she took much pride in, rather it was just something that she could do that others could as well.

It was when her mother was kidnapped and held to ransom that things changed for her, her outlook on pride being just one of them. She easily got a job working for the Ministry of Defence and stealing the plans for the sonic modulator wasn't that much harder. Making the sonic modulator on the other hand was a little bit harder, a challenge, something she relished. The pride she felt on completion of the sonic device was immense, she had managed to create something the best minds at the MOD had failed, why else would the plans have been shelved if it wasn't that they had no-one on staff that could build one. Her pride was short lived however when she realised that while it was a challenge and an amazing feat for her the object was still going to end up in the hands of terrorists.

She couldn't be proud of her work on an object that was going to be used for harm, that wasn't her nature, but she knew that regardless of her own feelings that she would have to hand the device over, her mother's life depended on it. The drop-off was already planned, and she had her orders, she just hoped that both she and her mother would make it out alive. She delivered the modulator without any problems, her mother was still alive, and she was already trying to form a plan to get them out of there when everything changed.

The next thing she remembered was waking up in a cell, being informed that she was in a UNIT prison and that she could be held there for life without trial. Although she knew her life was over all she could think about was her mother and her safety, however no-one would tell her anything about her mother's condition, it was like she was no longer a person with rights. Despite this though her feelings of pride resurfaced, she may be stuck in a cell for life, but hopefully so were those who had captured her mother. It might not be the most desirable situation for her to be in, but she couldn't help the feeling of pride that overcame her at the fact that she had inadvertently helped to put some terrorists away behind bars, or steel doors as the case may be. At least she knew that her family would be safe from them, she knew that if she was here for life then they were bound to be given the same sentence, after all they were the main perpetrators of the crime, she was just an accessory.

She asked daily about her mother, receiving no reply each time, until the day she was told she had an inspection, the voice still wouldn't tell her how her mother was, but she would be seeing something other than the four walls of her cell. When her cell door opened a man stood in the doorway, looking as if he had stepped straight out of the Second World War. He makes a lousy joke about the food, not something she's really interested in, and she presses him for information about her mother. Relief floods through her body when she hears that her mother is safe and won't remember being kidnapped, or what Toshiko had done to try and save her. When she asks him who he is he fobs her off with a story about not existing, then he tells her how she is going to be kept here, before pulling out something she hoped never to see again, the sonic modulator.

She's surprised to hear the pride in his voice as he talks to her about her making it, and telling her how the plans were flawed. She can't help the small thrill of pride that runs through her body when she realises that she made the device from incomplete plans, but quickly pushes it away knowing that it is not the time to be proud of herself, what she need is to get out of here. He offers her a deal, one she takes when she realises that he's not someone else out to use her skills to harm people. She won't be able to see her family, but then again she wouldn't have seen them from a prison cell, and at least she would have some contact with them. As for her knew job, after talking to Captain Harkness, or as he'd told her to call him, Jack, she realised that working for Torchwood was something that she could take pride in.

She'd been proud of her work on the sonic modulator, the price of which was prison, at least the price demanded for her pride of working for Torchwood was not her soul.


End file.
